How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever

A world-renowned paleontologist reveals astonishing new science that trumps science fiction: how humans can re-create a dinosaur.

In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs---or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the twenty-first century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.

In the 1980s, Horner began using CAT scans to look inside fossilized dinosaur eggs, and he and his colleagues have been delving deeper ever since. At North Carolina State University, Mary Schweitzer has extracted fossil molecules---proteins that survived 68 million years---from a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil excavated by Horner. These proteins show that T. rex and the modern chicken are kissing cousins. At McGill University, Hans Larsson is manipulating a chicken embryo to awaken the dinosaur within---starting by getting it to grow a tail and eventually prompting it to grow the forelimbs of a dinosaur. All of this is happening without changing a single gene.

This incredible research is leading to discoveries and applications so profound they're scary in the power they confer on humanity. How to Build a Dinosaur is a tour of the hot rocky deserts and air-conditioned laboratories at the forefront of this scientific revolution.

A world-renowned paleontologist reveals astonishing new science that trumps science fiction: how humans can re-create a dinosaur.

In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs---or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the twenty-first century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.

In the 1980s, Horner began using CAT scans to look inside fossilized dinosaur eggs, and he and his colleagues have been delving deeper ever since. At North Carolina State University, Mary Schweitzer has extracted fossil molecules---proteins that survived 68 million years---from a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil excavated by Horner....

Publishers Weekly

The premise of this provocative but frustrating book by MacArthur Award-winning paleontologist Horner and New York Times deputy science editor Gorman (coauthors of Digging Dinosaurs) : a kind of reverse genetic engineering could make it possible to " build" a dinosaur embryo from the embryo of a modern bird-a chicken, say- since birds are the evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs. The trick would involve the new science of evolutionary development (known as evo devo) and a host of biological techniques. Horner and Gorman argue that during the process, one could stop and analyze every frame of the evolutionary tape as it played in reverse. The authors use the research on tail development of Hans Larsson at McGill University to explore how embryos can illuminate evolution. Much of the rest of the book offers background, but often digresses, for example, into hunting for DNA from 68-million-year-old dinosaur bones or the surfing habit of the man who discovered the polymerase chain reaction or how genetically close humans and Neanderthals are-none of which advances the book's central argument. B&w illus. (Mar.)

Jack Horner is regents professor of paleontology at Montana State University, curator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies, and probably the best-known paleontologist in the world. The recipient of a MacArthur “genius” award, he is the author of several books on dinosaurs, has helped create several documentaries, and does field work in Montana and Mongolia.

James Gorman is deputy science editor of The New York Times and editor of its Science Times section. He is the author of several books, including two previous books with Horner.